Zuckerberg: Facebook phone is no go, but I've greenlit search engine

Mark Zuckerberg has put paid to rumours that his company is looking to launch a Facebook phone, claiming that it doesn't make any sense. He has, however, admitted that there are ambitions to take on Google head-to-head with a Facebook search engine.

Speaking during a TechCrunch Disrupt "fireside chat", CEO Zuckerberg said he was tired of the persistent rumours that Facebook was launching its own smartphone. It is not something that the company has on its radar at all.

"It doesn't move the needle for us," he said. "The phone just doesn't make any sense."

Instead, he wants Facebook to be a fully integrated service on all mobile devices, iPhone, Android, Windows Phone and more.

"The strategy that's different for every other tech company, which is building their own hardware, we're going in the opposite direction," he revealed. "We want to build a system which is as deeply as possible integrated into every major device people want to use."

But while he pooh-poohed the idea of a Facebook smartphone, Zuckerberg explained that he was more open to a Facebook search engine to rival Google, Yahoo and Microsoft's Bing.

He believes the social networking site is already busily "answering people's questions" and that's what a modern search engine should do.

"We’re basically doing 1 billion queries a day and we’re not even trying," he said. "Facebook is pretty uniquely positioned to answer the questions people have. At some point we’ll do it. We have a team working on it.

"Search engines are really evolving to give you a set of answers, 'I have a specific question, answer this question for me.'"

So, as Google tries to invade the social networking sector with Google+, it may find Facebook fighting back on its own turf.

Would you use a Facebook search engine instead of Google? Let us know in the comments below...

Our senior ed of news and features has been a tech and games journalist for more than 27 years, and has been with Pocket-lint for over five. Rik has edited a number of videogame magazines in the past, was deputy editor of Home Cinema Choice, and his TV career included stints as co-presenter of Channel 4's Gamesmaster and Sky One’s Games World.